Over the last four years, Kaneez Surka did what most comedians would consider career su*cide. She walked away from the Indian comedy scene she had helped build and moved to New York City to start over.

Here, Surka was best known for her improv work and format shows. But in NYC, she stopped dabbling and committed fully to stand-up. The gamble worked. She emerged with a sharper voice, a new perspective, and a special—I Found My People—to show for it. Now, she’s back in India for a short run of shows in multiple cities, offering her fans and new local audiences a glimpse of the comic she’s evolved into.

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Touring with her new show Foreign Return, Surka digs into themes of love, belonging, and the strange identity crisis of living across countries long enough to feel like an outsider in all of them. The India leg of the tour kicked off in Gurugram, followed by Bengaluru, and will travel through Chennai, Hyderabad, Goa, Pune, and Mumbai over the coming weeks.

Ahead of the run, we caught up with Surka to talk about New York, finally finding her stand-up voice, and why coming home can sometimes be scarier than leaving.

You’ve spent the last four years in New York City working on your standup. What’s that journey been like?

It’s been really awesome, to be honest. I’ve said this many times, but doing comedy in America—especially in New York City—feels like going to a comedy gym. It’s known as a comedy mecca. Yes, there’s a lot of bad comedy, but there’s also a lot of very good comedy. You get to really work out your bits, you get a lot of stage time, and you perform for many different kinds of audiences. Going to a comedy show is one of the things people do in New York City, so it’s not just locals. Visitors and foreigners are constantly in the audience too. That means you’re exposed to a huge variety of crowds, which is great for a comedian.

For me personally, it was also the first time I decided to focus entirely on standup. I was predominantly known as the Improv Queen in India. I did a lot of improv and sketch comedy, and every now and then I would dabble in standup. But before moving, I made a conscious decision to focus only on standup. I didn’t pursue anything else in America. I wanted to learn the craft properly and immerse myself in the world of standup comedy.

So I did that for three years. During that time I set up my own international tour, performed my show I Found My People around the world, and eventually shot and released it as a special. It feels really satisfying to have gone through that entire journey and come out with a special at the end of it.

In many ways, I feel like I could only have done that in America. New York City is incredibly conducive to comedy. And as someone who grew up in South Africa and India, it was also the first place where I felt comfortable integrating both parts of my identity. I couldn’t quite do that in India, and I couldn’t do it in South Africa either. Somehow in New York City, those identities could exist together. That’s where I found my voice—the most authentic voice I’ve had as a standup comedian.

Was it daunting to start standup seriously in a new city like New York, where no one knows you?

I liked the anonymity. In that space, I felt like I could find my voice because there was no pressure and no expectations to live up to. That’s something I absolutely loved.

The second part was that, yes, I didn’t feel as strong a standup comedian as I do now. But I had years of stage time under my belt. I leaned on that experience. That confidence of simply being on stage acted as a buffer while I was still developing the craft.

No one questioned whether I belonged there because the comfort on stage was undeniable. The skill, however, was still catching up. I had done standup in India—I had performed on Ladies Up for Netflix, worked on those jokes and performed them regularly. But I hadn’t fully dedicated myself to learning the art form the way I eventually did in New York City.

Also, people found my stories and perspective refreshing, which helped compensate for my still-developing joke-writing skills. A lot of comedians would put me on their shows because I was comfortable on stage and brought a different perspective to the room.

You released your debut special last year. What was it like to tick it off your list?

I actually had a producer who wanted to produce the special in October the year before. Three weeks before the taping, I cancelled it because I didn’t feel ready. The material wasn’t ready.

I still did the show because the club had already been booked. After the set, the comedians there told me, “Kaneez, this special is ready. You could have recorded this today and released it.” That’s when I realised I might have overthought it and possibly lost a really good producer in the process. But that’s how it goes—you live and learn.

After that, I decided to focus on making the material as strong as possible. I gave myself a clear deadline: by March, the special had to be recorded, no matter what. A lot of the material had already been incubating for two-and-a-half to three years, and some of it was starting to feel dated to me. I knew I had to release it instead of sitting on it forever. So I took the plunge and shot it.

When the recording was done, I felt confident about it. It wasn’t the best thing in the world, but it was tight. The jokes worked, and most importantly, it felt very true to me. It was my story, told in my voice, and that made me happy.

I didn’t try to present a version of myself that I thought audiences would find more acceptable or lovable. I simply showed up as myself, using everything I had learned over the previous two-and-a-half years. And I’m proud of that.

Find our review of the show here.

Tell us about your new show Foreign Return, which you’re touring with in India.

It’s about love. At its core, the show comes from my experience of living across three different countries. I’ve been both a “foreign return” and a resident at different points in all of them. In America, I’m seen as foreign. In South Africa, I’m seen as foreign. In India, I’m seen as foreign. But I’m also seen as belonging to all three.

So I explore that tension through the lens of romantic love. For a long time, I believed that if I found romantic love, I would find a sense of belonging—that wherever I found love would become home for me. And spoiler alert: that’s not true.

In the show I talk about what it was like dating during apartheid. I talk about my two relationships in India. And I talk about dating in New York City, which has been a lighter experience because it hasn’t carried the same pressure of searching for love or settling down.

It’s essentially about navigating three different countries, cultures and political moments through relationships. I went to a white school and fell in love with a brown guy who ended up dating white girls. The dream, at the time, was to find a white man. Then I moved to America and discovered that all the white men I date have skid marks in their underwear—and I’m like, this was the dream?

So the show uses romantic love as a lens to explore belonging across different countries, cultures and identities.

How did this show come together?

Soho Theatre had booked me for a five-day residency, and I promised them I was bringing a new show. Three weeks before that, I was like, I have nothing.

But I had all these anecdotes. I put them together and I was like, oh, this is what this is about.

Comedians do that sometimes—we take jokes and try to find a through line. Once you find the through line, it becomes easier to talk about it. Then you start writing jokes around that. It’s not just random jokes slapped together. This show has a storyline.

I like writing my shows like that. Even with I Found My People, I wanted a journey. That’s what I’m drawn to as an artist right now.

You haven’t performed in India in a few years. Are you nervous?

Absolutely. I’m freaking out.

One of the reasons I stayed away for so long is that when I was performing in India earlier, I often felt like I was pandering to the audience. I was too scared to show them who I really was. And that fear is still there.

I don’t know if they’re going to accept the person I am now. Diasporic audiences—people who’ve lived abroad—have understood my material more easily. But I don’t know how audiences here will respond. They might feel like my experiences aren’t relatable.

But that’s my life. That’s the only perspective I have to offer. So we’ll see. I might be overthinking it. Some of these fears could simply be baggage from the past. When I first started comedy in the early 2010s, I got a lot of crap for sounding foreign and for my accent. Maybe that’s just something I still carry with me.

At the same time, the audiences I’ve built around the world have been incredible—warm, loving and really intelligent. Even comedians who’ve opened for me in America have told me they’ve never performed for such a generous audience. I didn’t even realise I had built that kind of community.

That moment made me feel like I must have done something right with my comedy.

With the boom of format shows in India, are you planning on bringing back the ‘General Fun Game Show’?

Yes. That is the plan. I’m just hoping I can coordinate it along with the tour and brand work and everything else.

But if I can coordinate it and get the guests I want there will be nothing like it. I’m 100% bringing it back. I might even fly to India just to shoot all the episodes if I need to. It’s happening.

The OG panel show. I had the most fun doing that in my comedy career. Even when I watch it, I laugh out loud. For my first episode back, I want Abish, Jose and Sumukhi. That’s the first one I want to shoot.

And I want to take it to America eventually. Two American comedians and one Indian comedian. That’s the goal—to tie the two worlds together.

Why do you think so many Indian comedians are opting to do format shows?

I think Indian comedians have always tried new things. That’s very much part of the Indian comedy scene. Maybe we took a break when Amazon and Netflix were throwing money at us. When they were commissioning things, we weren’t creating our own stuff. After that slowed down—especially post-pandemic—we started creating our own stuff again.

What I love about the Indian comedy scene is how creative and collaborative we are. Everybody shows up for each other. That doesn’t happen in America like it does here.

America is also trying to get into that now. And they’re looking at the Indian comedy scene for inspiration. That’s why I’m like—I need to bring back the General Fun Game Show quickly.

What have you missed most about India?

I really missed the Dakshinayan dosa. I missed pav bhaji. You don’t get good pav bhaji in America. The bread just isn’t right. And that’s half the dish.

And life in India, it’s a softer life. New York is hard. It’s a hard existence. But I love both cities.

Another reason I didn’t come back for the longest time was because I felt like I hadn’t achieved anything in America. I didn’t get a late-night show. I wasn’t on TV. The idea is always to go there and do all these big things. But I didn’t. And I felt embarrassed.

But then I got over that. I was like, I don’t need to conquer any market. I can just do whatever I want in whichever country I want. I don’t want to get caught up in feeling like a failure when I’m not failing.

People don’t see the friendships I’ve made or the beautiful life I’ve built there. If it’s not on Instagram, people think you haven’t made it. But that’s not true.